


the things you are.

by amaranthinecanicular



Category: D.Gray-man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-06-03 14:23:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6614113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaranthinecanicular/pseuds/amaranthinecanicular
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In nineteen years you have been many things, but here at the end, this is it: this is what you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the things you are.

This is what you are:

Standing, in a field of wheat tall enough to brush your cheeks, running your fingers through living gold, looking up at a bowl of sky so blue and beautiful it physically hurts you.

And you, six years old, red hair, green eye, body too small and dreams too big-

You want to know _everything._

-

This is what you are:

Eight years old, and in your first war. Gramps - he tells you not to call him Gramps - took your name and remolded it, took some letters out and stuck some others in, gave it back to you as _Llewyn._ He did it again and you became _Saeed._ A third time in two years and now you’re _Gilbert._ As _Gilbert_ you get your first taste of death - real death, the kind that comes in droves, the kind that comes when man kills man and no one thinks to stop it, the kind that is bloody and violent and undeniable.

You ask Gramps why they’re fighting.

He tells you the causes of the war, the beliefs of both sides, but you shake your head because you heard that already.

Yeah, but Gramps, why are they _fighting?_

He looks at you.

Looks away.

Tells you to stop calling him Gramps.

-

This is what you are:

Eleven years old, and you still want to know everything, but you’re not so sure anymore you’ll like everything you learn. You’re _Robert_ now. A week ago you were _Mao._ A week ago you were recording another war, another man-made monstrosity, and you’re beginning to wonder if anything will be quite so beautiful as that blue sky again.

You think to ask Gramps; you don’t. He sees you watching the sky instead of the fighting and then he does something he’s never done: he reaches over and puts an arm around you.

We are in the business of recording history, not happy endings, he says, almost gently. We are Bookmen. This is what that means.

You look out and you see war.

You are eleven and you are a Bookman.

-

This is what you are:

Bitter. Fourteen. You’re in between names, right now, just as you’re in between wars. You say in between because you’ve learned that even when there are no wars looming on the horizon there are always wars. Sometimes they come suddenly; sometimes they do not. But there are always wars, will always be another war. When you tell Gramps this, he does not correct you.

He does not correct you, but he takes you to a festival. It is a festival of flowers; it is a festival of color and light. It is a festival they hold every year, in this country, it is culture, it is beautiful, it is breathtaking. You ask Gramps why he took you here, and he says because this is history, too. We record this, too.

You are a Bookman and you are fourteen and you are hating humanity and you are hating Gramps for showing you this and you are hating yourself because even after all the war and all the death, damn you, you see things like this and you remember blue sky and you still want to know everything. You know you’ll never stop, and you hate that.

-

This is what you are:

Sixteen, and not _Deak._ You’re _Lavi,_ now, even though that’s not really what you are. It’s an alias. You aren’t much of anything, anymore, and neither are other humans, in your opinion.

You’re not Deak but you keep his bitterness. You keep his spite. Bitter and spiteful and cynical, that’s what you are, because it’s been sixteen years and forty nine names and the wars never end, never, no matter the beautiful things in between, and you-

You just met a girl.

She’s crying over corpses.

She’s looking at you.

Her name is Lenalee.

-

This is what you are:

Eating spaghetti. Eating spaghetti and getting harassed by the science division, for what, uniforms? Eating spaghetti and listening to the light wind-chime of Lenalee’s laughter, eating spaghetti and laughing, and grinning, and those last two aren’t you, not really, they haven’t been you for a long time, but they’re. They’re something. You are eating spaghetti and Lenalee’s on one side and Johnny’s on the other and you’re going to spar with Yu later and that’s _something._

-

This is what you are:

Seventeen, and you have, tentatively, a friend.

His name is Doug. He’s got black hair and blue eyes. His spine is straight. His gaze is straightforward and honest. You met him once before, a year ago, and now you’re on a mission and - and you’re friends. You think. The laughter feels more like you around him.

And Doug meets Colette and wants to adopt her and that’s good, that’s not you, but the happiness you feel for him is, because Doug’s good, he’s not rotten, he’s not bitter or cynical and neither is she and they deserve each other, they’re good and you’re happy for them. That’s what you are: _happy_ for them. Bookman watches you, disapproving, and you are happy for them.

-

This is what you are:

Watching Doug die. Killing Doug with your own hands. Crying. Hating. Killing.

Searing this moment, exactly, and in great detail, into your memory, because you can forget nothing, Lavi, Bookman, killer, and this more than anything you must remember: you cannot have friends. You cannot have friends, you cannot love, you cannot have a heart.

Stare at the hair ribbon Doug bought for a girl who died and remember: you cannot have a heart. That is not what you are.

-

This is what you are:

Eighteen, and you just met Allen Walker.

He’s got white hair and grey eyes. His spine is straight. His gaze is straightforward and honest. He reminds you so strongly of Doug that it leaves you breathless, at first, and then you remember: no friends, no love, no heart. That’s not what you are, but you are eighteen, and you did just meet Allen Walker, and you have a strange feeling as Bookman eyes you suspiciously that you are in a whole lot of trouble.

-

This is what you are:

About to lose Lenalee Lee - no. _Reject_ that. That is _not_ what you are. This is what you are: _Saving_ Lenalee Lee. You have to.

You are not allowed to have a heart but you have to save Lenalee Lee, as she goes down over the ocean, a beautiful dying star, as beautiful as festivals, as beautiful as blue skies, as beautiful as white ribbons and honest eyes and anything you have ever known. You’ve already lost Doug and you’ve already lost Allen and everything that you are, in this moment, is the sole necessity to _save Lenalee._

In the end, you do not. She saves herself, but it’s you that holds her, as she marvels over her own life, as you marvel with her. You hold her, Lavi, Bookman, and you cry tears of pure, shameless relief. You hold her. You hold her.

-

This is what you are:

_Right,_ like always. About the Allen thing. Meeting Allen Walker was a whole lot of trouble for you. Because now you’re burning up, burning to a crisp in a world of your own making, of Road’s making, and all because you met Allen Walker - because you met Yu Kanda, because you met Lenalee and Doug - and you don’t even regret it, is the worst part. You’re saving their lives at the expense of yours, and Lavi, you don’t even regret it.

You look down at the knife in your chest and you look back at all the things you were - Deak, Anthony, Kaden, Jin, Jean, Robert, Mao, Charles, Enzo, Shiro, Ling, Gilbert, Saeed, Llewyn, more more more, and God, for all your perfect memory you cannot remember your very first name - and you realize that right now, as you burn, you are not a Bookman.

And as Allen pulls you from the rubble, in the aftermath, as Lenalee cries because you’re alive, thank God, you’re alive, you don’t regret that much either.

-

This is what you are:

Fighting beside your friends. Fighting for friends who are gone. Fighting for friends who are still here. You’re beside Yu Kanda, now, with a staff in your hands because your Innocence is shattered, how’s that for a metaphor, and you face down a foe you can’t possibly beat but you’ve got Yu at your side and you’ve got Allen in the wings, he’s always in the wings for you, always has your back, and you’ve got Lenalee, beautiful strong Lenalee, fighting till her legs won’t hold her and then fighting anyway, and you’ve got Krory, and you’ve got the Science Division, and you’ve got Gramps.

You are a Bookman, and you are fighting for your friends.

Remember, Bookman, a ribbon in your hand, and a friend long gone.

Smile, briefly, and keep fighting.

-

This is what you are:

Dying.

Rotted slowly from the inside out. Your core going sour, insides shriveling, as parasites in the form of maggots and eyeballs and fangs dig into the meat of you and scoop you out. You die at the hands of the Noah. You die because Gramps won’t give them information, and because you tell him not to. You die slowly. You die painfully. You die screaming.

You do _not_ die pleading for your life, and you do _not_ die giving up your friends, because that is _not,_ God help you, what you are.

_This_ is what you are:

_Lavi._

_This_ is what you are:

An _Exorcist._

_This_ is what you are:

A _friend,_ and you will fucking _die,_ and die again and again and again to save them, and you will die spitting in your murderer’s eye and you will die _laughing-_

-

This is what you are:

Reaching, because that blue sky is right there, right in front of you, and it’s so, _so_ beautiful, Gramps' arm around your shoulder and all your friends waiting, and you smile, and you _reach-_


End file.
